Dutch marine charged with murder of Iraqi civilian
27 12:

Of course, the mission is not without risks. As the ongoing assaults on US troops in and around Baghdad, the killing of British troops in the South, and the recent bombing of the UN Headquarters indicate, post-Saddam Iraq is all but stable and secure. Nonetheless, the Dutch government assured concerned MPs, “the security situation in the South of Iraq may be described as reasonably stable”.

Some MPs have raised questions about the use of DU (depleted uranium) during the war and its repercussions for the safety of civilians and army personnel in the area. On this issue, too, the government assured, there was no cause for concern as “no significant fighting has taken place in the province of Al Muthanna”. Besides that, according to Minister of Defence, "no DU ammunition was used in the area during the recent conflict".

The assertion that no significant fighting took place in the area is so blatantly belied by open sources, that one wonders if any of the Ministers ever reads a newspaper. The capital of the province, As Samawah, is strategically located on the road from Basra to Baghdad, providing access to a bridge over the Euphrates river. On its march to Baghdad, the US army encountered fierce resistance there, according to American officers . Reportedly, it took just one day to take the bridge but more than a week before the town and the road were cleared of all ‘pockets of resistance’ . 112 civilians, most of them inhabitants of As Samawah, were killed in the battle.

Despite such incidents, the Dutch government persists in depicting Al Muthanna as a remote, barely inhabited desert where no noteworthy events have occurred. In fact, as far as recent military activities are concerned, it was part and parcel of the ‘theatre of operations’.

For that matter, the assertion that “no DU ammunition was deployed in Al-Muthanna" is also unfounded. If this assertion is based on information it received from US officials, as the Dutch government claims, it has been deceived. On the 12th of March, about a week before his troops set foot on Iraqi soil, Major General “Buff” Buford Blount III, commander of the US army 3rd Infantry Division already conveyed in an interview with Le Monde that “if we receive the order to attack, final preparations will only take a few days. We have already began to unwrap our depleted uranium anti-tank shells.” That order came shortly, and as the Division advanced to Baghdad along the Euphrates, its Abrams tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles (BFVs) did not leave their DU-shells sit idle on the way. On March 26, at CENTCOM Headquarters, General Brooks admitted as much, although he stressed that only “a very small portion of our munitions [contain] depleted uranium”.

Be that as it may, it is a fact that DU-ammunition has been widely used during operation “Iraqi Freedom”, also in Southern Iraq. Al Muthanna is no exception: the usage of DU-ammunition in and around the capital of the province, As Samawah, has been confirmed by US troops and ‘embedded’ journalists. In a widely distributed field message, Sergeant First Class (SFC) Cooper reports that the weapons systems used by the 3rd Infantry 7th Cavalry en route to As Samawah and on to Najaf, “are performing well, especially the 25mm DU and 7.62” .  In a letter sent home, E. Pennell, crew member on a BFV of the 1st Infantry Battallion, 41st Infantry regiment, describes how his crew fires a 25 mm DU-round as they encounter seven enemy troops in the town of As Samawah: “We fire five rounds. The first one is a depleted uranium due to standard operating procedures”. Such reports suggest that DU ammunition was routinely employed in encounters with armoured enemy vehicles, also in urban environments.

Whereas the deployment DU ammunition on the ground may have been subject to some operational restrictions, airborne DU ordnance has been fired less discriminately. The aircraft of choice for close air support to ground battles has been the A-10 “Wharthog” jet, notorious for its anti-tank missiles and its lethal 30 mm cannons that can fire up to 4200 rounds per minute.  Accordingly, the aircraft is designed to carry lots of ammunition, both DU as well as ‘conventional’, high explosive (HE) rounds, typically fed into its guns in a mix of 5/6 or 5/8 (DU/HE) .

In Southern Iraq the Warthogs have played an important, supporting role in efforts to control strategic locations such as Tallil airbase and the bridges over the Euphrates. In the battle of Samawah, too, Warthogs have been called in to help ground troops mop up resistance and capture the two bridges there. In one of the incidences, vehicles of the 3rd Infantry 7th Cavalry reportedly drew friendly fire from Warthog aircraft, during a strike on a junk yard in town.

Since the US government has so far not disclosed any exact numbers, it is yet unknown just how much DU has been used in the war. The British government has been a bit more forthcoming, admitting that British Challenger tanks expended 1.9 tons of DU. On the basis of the available information Dan Fahey, an independent DU expert, estimates that 100-200 tons of DU may have been released during combat. If true, this would be significantly less than the total of approximately 290 tons shot in 1991.  However, as Mr Fahey and others note, this time a larger share of the expenditure appears to have occurred in or around urban areas and, thus, increasing the potential for civilian exposure to DU.

Indeed, all over Iraq, the remains of spent DU shells and DU-contaminated debris have been found littering the streets in urban areas.  Some wrecked vehicles have been towed away, and the most obvious contaminated sites are marked.  However, most locations have not even been identified let alone cleaned, even though there is a widely shared consensus that DU contamination can be a potential health hazard.

Now, at least the British government has agreed to provide details of UK DU firing locations to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and directly to recognised non-government organisations working on location .  It has also assumed some responsibility for clean-up and decontamination . In contrast, the US government has so far denied any responsibility for DU clean-up in Iraq.  To date, it has also refused to disclose any information about the quantities and locations of DU expenditure or allow a UNEP Post Conflict Assessment Unit to study the environmental impact of DU contamination.

of television program 2Vandaag (30 07 2003).